EU Pursues Questionable Antitrust Case Against Google

In a long line of European regulators taking aggressive stances against American tech companies, on April 15, 2015, Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s antitrust chief, charged Google Inc. with antitrust violations for allegedly abusing its dominance in Web searches. Though the European Union has been investigating Google for the past five years, Vestager’s predecessor, Joaquin Almunia, had seemed hesitant to file the “statement of objections” — the European equivalent of formal charges. Google had proposed three different settlements during those five years, but all three were ultimately rejected by Almunia’s office.